


Movie Night

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:51:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His focus should <i>not</i> be on how much the sight of John McClane makes him really, really wish he could take off his pants.  And John's pants.  And do things that he really shouldn't be thinking about unless he's alone in the spare room with the lights off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movie Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest, for the prompt "that car thief thing"
> 
> * * *

Matt always imagined that it'd be great to be stuck at home all day with no commitments, nothing but time to do whatever the fuck he wanted. He's always been a loner, anyway. His favourite pursuits have always been solitary ones. And frankly, it's not like he has a lot of friends to miss to begin with. So. Weeks and weeks of time to just chill out, work on the coding that he wants to instead of the shit that he actually gets paid to do, and finally break through the final level of Necropolis Noir and solve the goddamn riddle? Heaven.

Turns out that the United States government frowns upon allowing access to a computer to dudes who were responsible for writing part of the code that nearly took out the entire American financial infrastructure. Even if that dude did end up protecting that same financial data and is currently bunking with a damn cop. Which Matt thinks is patently unfair. And possibly unconstitutional.

Also, it's really difficult to concentrate on avoiding the devil dogs of Necropolis City when his leg throbs like a son of a bitch at regular eight minute intervals, and he's only allowed the painkillers that dial it down to a dull ache once every six hours. He keeps his leg – forced straight by way too many long pins and scaryass looking pieces of metal -- propped up on a stained and battered ottoman in the McClane living room. And it's impossible to use a step stool, so he thinks the fact that McClane is keeping the painkillers on top of the kitchen cabinets where he can't reach them is also probably a violation of his basic human rights. 

He'd ask Warlock to check into it, but – _oh that's right he can't have access to a computer._

After he wastes about seventeen lives trying to avoid the firebombs of Necropolis, he finally admits that the painkillers make him too loopy to concentrate on the damn game, anyway.

Heaven turns out to be more like Hell.

Hell that only has basic cable.

Which is why he perks up considerably when he hears McClane's key in the lock.

"Did you get them?" he calls out. " _Please_ tell me you got them!"

"Jesus, kid," McClane grumbles back at him from the hallway. "Keep your pants on."

McClane's always saying shit like that. Keep your pants on. Like Matt could possibly quickly maneuver out of his ill-fitting sleep pants with the giant slit up the leg to accommodate the aforementioned scaryass metal splint without practically killing himself in the process. Or like Matt is in the habit of regularly removing his pants whenever McClane walks into the room.

Like John is now. Lugging a big cardboard box under one arm. With the muscles of that arm bulging under the weight of the box. And with the sweat of a steamy New York City summer dampening his tight black T-shirt, making it practically mould to a barrel of a chest that could stop traffic.

"Not much here, kid," John says after he's set the box down on the sideboard, tugged open the flaps and is rummaging through the detritus of Matt's life. 

Matt blinks. Right. The thing to concentrate on here is the results from John's trip to sort through what little was left of his belongings after Gabriel's goons blew his apartment into next week. His focus should _not_ be on how much the sight of John McClane makes him really, really wish he could take off his pants. And John's pants. And do things that he really shouldn't be thinking about unless he's alone in the spare room with the lights off.

His leg may be broken but at least his hand still works.

"Few shirts and jeans that might not be too bad once I run 'em through the laundry about fifty times to get the goddamn smoke smell out," John is saying, still groping around in the box while Matt tries to get his treacherous brain out of smut-mode. "And two of your dolls." He makes a face. "Sorta. This one is kind of melty."

"Aaaand?" Matt says hopefully. Because yes, it would be nice to think that a Captain America or possibly a limited edition Spawn survived the inferno that his apartment became, but right now neither of them will alleviate the mind numbing boredom of Week Three at Chez McClane.

So when McClane holds up the black zippered case, Matt lets out a whoop. "They survived!" he grins happily.

McClane arches a brow. "Let of enthusiasm for a couple of DVDs, kid."

"A couple of…" Matt shakes his head. "DVDs produced after 1972, McClane. DVDs that are in colour. DVDs made after the invention of CGI! Not that I don't appreciate you letting me watch every movie in your collection, all of which seem to star guys in trench coats and fedoras or cowboy hats. Oh, and that whole Gunsmoke series, stellar. Totally not at all horrendously boring, really."

"CG what?"

"Hah. Right. Even you, McClane, icon of the dinosaur age, know what CGI is. Nice try, though. A for effort." Matt shifts on the sofa. "You know what? To reward you for that fine attempt at humour, I'm going to let you choose the first movie we watch. Go ahead. Pick anything. I'll even spring for the pizza."

"I'm honoured," John says.

Matt rolls his eyes and reaches for the cell phone, the leg that's not currently being held in a medieval torture device bouncing in anticipation. He'll order extra bacon and hold the onions on the pizza, because even though McClane says he likes them he always ends up trundling into the bathroom at some point for the Tums. And probably halfway through the second movie McClane will make popcorn and sit close to him on the sofa so he can reach the bowl, and their legs will touch, and he doesn't even care that his anticipation of that is even more pronounced that his glee over watching a couple of good movies for once, because it only took three days of living with John McClane for Matt to accept that he's totally lame and pathetic where McClane is concerned.

He's placed the order and assured Giorgio that his credit card is still good when he realizes that McClane hasn't moved from the side table; is, in fact, staring down at the DVD case like it holds a couple of live snakes instead of some cheesy horror flicks and a couple of sci-fi classics.

"What?" he asks. "What's wrong? Are they damaged?"

John crosses the room, shoves the case toward him. "These aren't movies."

"What do you mean they're not—"

"These are copies of movies."

Matt frowns, because sometimes following McClane-speak reminds him of his first stumbling steps with CSS back in, like, third grade or something. "Well, yeah," he says. "They're downloaded, everyone knows the studio system is completely corrupt, nobody actually _buys_ … oh. Except for… you. With the whole… cop thing."

"Yeah," John says dryly. "The whole cop thing."

"Look, it's no big deal—"

"Should've known," John mutters.

Matt narrows his eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You were on the black hat list for a reason, kid."

"What?" Matt says, except it's more like a squeak, but come on. Not even McClane could think… 

Matt gets a look at John's face, and realizes that John really could. 

"You think downloading a few movies should be a fucking federal offense? Oh, okay, lock me up, detective, Craven didn't get his twenty cents out of me for _Last House on the Left_. And by the way, that _reason_ happened when I was _fifteen_."

"And jacking cars?" McClane says gruffly. "That also happen when you were fifteen?"

Okay. So he knew from the moment McClane gave him that sidelong glance in the car when he fucked up and admitted he'd sweet-talked the Onstar operators in the past that he was going to hear about it sometime or other. He just didn't figure it would be like this.

"No, that was when I was sixteen. Right after I got out of juvie and my parents kicked me out on the goddamn street." Matt snorts, tosses the case behind him, pushes awkwardly to his feet and reaches for his crutches, all the anticipatory pleasure of the evening gone, bitterness welling up to replace it. His fault, he knows, for acting like a schoolboy where John is concerned. His fault for deluding himself that a couple of weeks lounging on a guy's sofa and sharing his space and talking to him practically 24/7 means anything at all, even if they did save the fucking world together.

"Kid," John starts.

Matt pushes away his reaching hand. "No, you know what? Never mind. It's just after everything, I really thought that maybe this time it wouldn't matter. Did the time, right? But what really doesn't matter is how hard I work to get past everything I did, because I'll always still be that criminal, that hacker. To the FBI, to any decent company that wants to hire me, to you!"

And then it turns out that pushing away that helping hand was kind of a bad idea, because Matt does tend to forget that he's actually physically impaired these days, and getting a good flail going involves liberal arm-waving. He feels the crutch slipping out from beneath his armpit and knows he's going to go down and go down hard, and there isn't a thing he can do to stop it. All he can seem to do is squinch his eyes closed and try to brace himself for the fall.

Then a strong arm slips around his waist, and while he teeters on the edge of collapse, he feels John's lips brush his.

His lips are dry, the touch hesitant. As kisses go it's definitely not in his top ten, for various reasons, not the least of which is because he's mostly trying to process what the hell is happening instead of actually actively participating. He still hasn't figured it out when John breaks the awkward sort-of-kiss and pulls his head away.

"Okay," Matt says when he finally opens his eyes. He lifts one finger in the air. "What the fuck was that?"

"You almost fell."

"So you figured you'd stop me with your LIPS?"

John lifts his good shoulder in a clumsy semi-shrug, the act of which means he has to shift his weight, which pushes their bodies even closer together. He fits his hand more snugly around Matt's waist, and Matt tells himself that it's just to anchor him and make sure they both don't go tumbling to the ground, except they are so close that he can _feel_ that McClane is way more interested in… other things. Things that actually usually happen in the horizontal position. Which is where his grip is keeping them from going. 

Matt's head kind of hurts. 

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" John says.

When Matt just huffs out a breath, John takes a shuffling half-step back, ducks his head. "Look, kid, maybe I've been reading you all wrong. I don't think so, I'm a pretty damn good judge of character, but… if I have, I apologize."

"No," Matt says. "No, you're not… you haven't… it's just… wow. Okay. This is so completely out of left field. One second you're calling me a criminal and the next… I don't even know what—"

The kiss this time is less tentative, and after the initial surprise – and Matt seriously wonders right then and there if John McClane will ever stop surprising him – Matt returns it with enthusiasm. He manages to free one hand, trusting in McClane to keep them upright if his traitorous leg decides to slide out from under him again, and uses it to clutch at John's shoulder and brace himself while he attempts an awkward hop-and-wiggle that puts their bodies flush together and lets John know that he is equally interested. In things that they can do together. Of the horizontal persuasion. 

When John pulls away the second time, his lips are kiss-bruised and he's panting just a little and Matt feels rather insanely proud of himself.

"Huh," Matt says. "Again, unexpected. But I _am_ warming up to it."

"You did say that I wasn't wrong," John says smugly.

Matt inclines his head. "True."

"And I never called you a criminal," John says. 

"You implied it," Matt says primly. Because okay, McClane may have just literally pulled him into one of those sweeping, swooping stupid hallmark movie of the week kisses, and his heart may now be ticking along double-time, but he still has his pride.

"I didn't mean to," John says. "You're right, kid. Whatever you did in your past, you made up for it with this," he glances down at the mass of metal holding Matt's leg in one piece, "and this," he continues as he taps a knuckle gently on Matt's chest. "I got no goddamn right to judge you for—"

Matt has time to see John's eyes widen in his own surprise before he leans forward and initiates a kiss of his own. And, if he does say so himself, it's the best one yet, all smooth glide and probing tongues. It's so good, in fact, that he actually has no conscious memory of John manouevering them both back down onto the sofa until they're actually there, the arm of the sofa at his back and John half-lounging on top of him and being careful to avoid putting any pressure on his bad leg.

"Okay," he breathes out when they come up for air. "That was… that…"

"Yeah," John agrees. But the rather blissful look on his face changes to a grimace when he grunts, tugs the DVD case out from beneath his hip. "We're getting rid of these," he announces before tossing the case toward the coffee table.

John's still got one big hand resting on Matt's waist, his thumb rubbing semi-circles into the skin of his hip, and Matt can't help but think that he'd be feeling a bit more peeved at the callous disregard for his belongings if that didn't feel so damn _good_. As it is, he manages a disgruntled "Jesus Christ, McClane!"

John arches one brow. "I just had my tongue down your throat, kid," he says. "Pretty sure you can call me John."

"You know, I just had _my_ tongue down _your_ throat," Matt counters. "Pretty sure you can call me Matt."

"Fine. _Matt_ ," John says. "We're still getting rid of those. I know it's a grey area to you, kid, but I'm a damn cop. There are copyright laws--"

"Let's at least keep _The Hills Have Eyes_ ," Matt says.

"No."

"It's the director's cut!"

"No."

"C'mon, McClane. _John_. Do you know how _rare_ that is? It's not even in existence any more, it took me months to track down—"

This time when John closes the distance Matt is ready for him. And while part of him is mourning the forthcoming loss of his precious DVDs – he's not fool enough to think he's going to win this battle, though he does plan to at least attempt to hide _The Hills Have Eyes_ somewhere in his room – he also realizes that right now, he doesn't really need them anymore.

The evenings at Chez McClane aren't going to be boring any longer.


End file.
